I took my first – and only – final today, for Media Usage & Effects. And I turned in my final project for Intro to the Short Story. So… now I’m done for the semester. I can’t quite believe that I finished my first year of college already.

And I can’t believe that most of my friends are gone already, either. Since I’m taking summer classes, I’ll be staying in the same dorm until August. Although, since they’re renovating the upper floors of this building, I’ll have to change rooms.

But yeah. Most of my friends have already packed up their things and left. The dorm is really quiet now. I have some of my stuff packed up – all of my books, and a few clothes – but mostly I’m just sitting here not quite knowing what to do with myself. There are definitely things I want and need to do, but it’s just weird to have all this free time for a few days. I hope to use it to read, write and schedule some blog posts, go for long walks, et cetera.

ANYWAY. I haven’t yet decided whether or not I want to write a wrap-up post about the 2015-2016 school year as a whole, but in the meantime I definitely want to publish a final post with my thoughts about this semester overall, which I did last semester as well. Enjoy!

The Art and Craft of Travel Writing

For our final class session we got pizza and then sat outside on the grass while my professor read inspirational quotes about writing aloud! It was a great day and a nice change from what we usually do, which is sitting in a classroom for, like, almost three hours.

I think I’m going to get a B in this class, and I’m trying to be OK with that. My perfectionist tendencies are telling me that I didn’t try hard enough, but another part of me knows that that’s not true: I did try. I tried really hard. I did my best. Most of my classmates were juniors and seniors, and so I think I did a pretty good job for being in such an advanced class.

Introduction to the Short Story:From Henry James to Flash Fiction

I handed in my final paper for this class this afternoon. It involved analyzing a short story we’ve written, and I ended up writing about my zombie short story from last semester’s creative writing workshop. So basically I ranted about subverting the Bury Your Gays trope and then talked a bunch about symbolism? I was also required to discuss authors whose works have influenced me and I figured out that Malinda Lo and Derek Landy have influenced me even more than I thought possible. WOW.

Media Uses and Effects

THIS CLASS, THOUGH. It’s given me so many ideas for blog posts because I learned how to analyze media in ways that I never even dreamed of! It honestly makes me so excited to continue studying journalism and to take more and more advanced classes. I know a lot of people also in the journalism program so it’ll be fun to take all our required courses together. That’s a great feeling, actually – the same thing happened with my English classes, so I’ll know some of the people in my classes for next semester already because we’re all studying the same thing.

Language Rights

I have a 96% in this class. I think this is my highest overall grade this semester? I’m really proud of myself, because this was another advanced course and the workload was fairly demanding. We had something due at least twice a week, each and every week, but I managed to keep up on ALL the reading responses and so it was very satisfying to look at my grades this week and see how all the points added up over time. I’m hoping to make the dean’s list again this semester so I’m glad that I worked so hard in this class!

Wonder Woman Unleashed: A Hero for Our Times

I LOVE THIS CLASS. For our final two class sessions we went on little field trips, which was a ton of fun because so few of the courses I have had so far do stuff like that. We visited an exhibit about the original Star Trek show and its influence on fanmade zines at the main campus library, and then toured an exhibit about female artists in the student union’s art museum a few days later. Since the Star Trek exhibit is open through the entire summer, I definitely need to write a post about it because it was great! I want to go back!

I’m hoping to take a lit course with the same professor in the fall and I can’t wait! I adore her teaching style and am so glad that I signed up to take this course on Wonder Woman.

-~-

Have you started summer vacation yet?! Tell me how your classes were this past semester!

One Response to Final Thoughts On My Spring 2016 Classes

I still have another two months of school, alas. But the Year 13s have their muck up day tomorrow for their final day of school which is hopefully going to be amusing. And ALL YOUR CLASSES SOUND SO FABULOUS. I really wish I could take classes like this at uni. *sighs* (Maybe I will by the time I get there. WHO KNOWS.) Congrats in doing so well in your classes, aah! 🙂